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April 19 2016

Burlington Children Cast Ballots in Town Election - Their Results

By: Rich Hosford

It wasn’t just registered voters casting ballots during Burlington’s Town Election.

As they have for almost two decades, volunteers in conjunction with Town Clerk Amy Warfield held a “Student Vote” to give Burlington children a chance to learn about participating in the election process.

“We create an environment where the voting process is very similar and the ballots and voting machines are the same; all with the goal of providing an early understanding of the process of American Democracy,” said Dr. Edward Weiner, who has coordinated the Student Vote since its inception. “This year we had one of the largest turnouts by the students.”

The children’s votes don’t count, of course, but it is a good way to get them used to voting. But for fun, let’s look at how the election turnout would be different if we went by their votes alone to pick the winners.

As previously reported, all the incumbents won in the town-wide races in the election.In the School Committee race incumbents Christine Monaco and Thomas Murphy Jr. beat challengers Karen Lavi and David Leavitt for the two contested seats. Incumbent members of the Board of Selectmen Chris Hartling and Robert Hogan won over challenger Virginia Mooney, who had 1,380 votes. There were two seats up for election. Current Town Moderator Sally Willard beat challenger Teresa Tarpey Clement with 1,947 votes to 1,395.

However, Burlington’s children voters came up with somewhat different results.

In the School Committee race Christine Monaco (98 votes) was joined by David Leavitt (95 votes) in the winner’s box. In the selectmen race Virginia Mooney (104 votes) beat out Robert Hogan (94 votes) to become a board member along with Chris Hartling (108 votes). In the Town Moderator race Sally Willard (85 votes) was able to keep her position against challenger Teresa Tarpey Clement (80 votes).